crochet

I have logged dozens of crochet creations on this blog. I mean it has it’s own tab and everything. I always have at least one project in the works. (Other Half, I am making progress on Baby Bowen’s blanket. Maybe it will be a half birthday present, which does seem appropriate.)

Over the years, I have had many of you ask, “How do I start crocheting?”

Well today, I am going to share some of my tips and some YouTube videos to help you out.

Here are my basic tips when beginning:

1. Choose your first needle or hook wisely. A lot of people first use a small needle starting out. DO NOT DO THIS. As you are learning, start with a big hook. The bigger the better as you are getting a feel for the weaving.

2. Along the same accord, choose a thicker weight of yarn. If you use a small weight yarn, it is easy to have to small of loops which makes it very hard to progress as a newbie. It just gets frustrating when you can’t see your loops! Also don’t do any of that fancy yarn with the fuzziness or extra frills. This is my personal favorite to have someone start on. Simple is better.

You can find this at Walmart or any craft store for like $2.50 a skein (roll of yarn). So the investment in my opinion is better when you are learning.

3. Just do a simple single stitch first starting out. It can be tricky to learn the mechanics, so you need to start with the basics.

4. Don’t expect your first project to be gift worthy. This is a craft that you have to practice because there is a certain finesse to it to make sure each stitch or loop is the same size. It can be frustrating to be learning and feel the pressure to complete this perfect project. My first blanket looked straight with a couple of wavy blobs in places because my stitches were uneven. It was horrendous. The nice thing about crochet mistakes is that you can easily rip them out and start over.

5. Have your first project be either a scarf or pot holder. Both of these are small projects that you can do fairly quickly, but gives you the time to learn the way.

6. Watch videos. For me this has been the best way to learn when I don’t have a teacher in person. I still watch videos and I have been doing this a long time.

From the time that I was 7 (when I learned to crochet) to 24, I just did a single or double crochet because that was all that my dad had taught me. I had been gifted several crochet books, but I had a really hard time understanding the symbol tutorials. When I started watching videos I was able to really learn a lot of new and unique stitches. It helps for me to actually see it being done.

So here are a few videos with the basics for beginners where crochet is concerned.

How to start a chain:

How to do a single chain:

How to do a double crochet:

Crochet Geek is the only channel I have booked in my favorites, and everything else is searchable. Crochet Geek has a learning video series for beginners. I highly recommend this channel! It is easily my favorite. She is really good at explaining things and showing you how each step should look in your hands.

Pinterest and ravelry.com are a good place to find new patterns and techniques. I find a lot of inspiration through these platforms and then use YouTube to show me how.

Just be patient with your first couple projects. If you do it enough, you will find a good rhythm, and it will become natural for you. I can do all the basic stitches now without looking, but I have also been doing it for over 20 years. So don’t get discouraged!

I didn’t follow it directly since I wasn’t making a Christmas hat. I started using the 6-12 month size but it was huge so I ripped it out and ended up sticking with the newborn size. And that size is still huge on George who is 5 months old.

I am excited to have this in my props box. It is just darling.

The pattern is really easy to follow, and it took me a couple days to make. I could have probably made it in one sitting, but I was only getting about 15 minutes spurts to crochet. So again, it is super easy and make me wonder why I haven’t attempted more hats.

Oh yes, because of the magic ring. But, I even mastered the magic ring by following this video.

It’s great as a baby prop because it can be smooshed and molded with a moving baby. This would be easy to make in all kinds of colors to really go with any holiday. I thought red would be nice for Valentine’s Day or Christmas.

I am trying to do more crocheting but it is really hard right now with our schedule. I have pinned a lot of things for inspiration so maybe things will slow down a bit for me to attempt more of them. But next up is a baby blanket for my other half who is preggers with their third little man!

What do you think of this hat? What other photo props do you think I should try making?

Like this:

My niece wanted to model off the blanket. She also insisted on taking my scrap yarn for a necklace.

I recently made this blanket for my cousin who is due any day now with her baby boy. There have been three babies (hers included) in the last year on my dad’s side. So many great-grandbabies for my grandparents!

I had been avoiding chevron patterns for a long time because every one that I had seen seemed really complicated. This one is more wavy than chevron but it is pretty close.

I used Vanna White yarn. Did you know that Vanna had her own yarn line? It is not traditional baby yarn, but it was hard to find these colors in traditional baby style. It is still soft in my opinion. I used two skeins of each color.

I used this video as my guide. I am really loving using Youtube for patterns!

I really loved how it turned out, and it was really easy unlike many other chevron patterns I have attempted.

I have another blanket I need to make for another bundle of joy maybe arriving on my birthday. I also have some other blanket projects up my sleeve. Time to put to use that gallon trash bag of yarn we moved. (Yes this is true life.)

Like this:

As I said we had to go all out for George’s first holidays. So one Halloween costume was not enough. Plus my friends challenged me to make George the cutest Halloween baby, so I couldn’t let them down.

I have had this hat pinned on Pinterest for years, so it was great to finally have a baby to make it for.

Again, newborns of the world are much larger than George apparently. I did the extra small sizing for both the beard and the hat. As you can see he is swimming in it. He is the only thing extra small here.

At least he can grow into it.

I just used left over yarn again since it doesn’t take very much. I have so much yarn so it is nice to find projects to use those left overs for.

The pattern is pretty easy to follow. So let’s cover more faces with this!